


Add Your Testament

by MagnaAlmaMater



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - The Handmaid's Tale Fusion, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 02:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnaAlmaMater/pseuds/MagnaAlmaMater
Summary: Years after the Union took a hold over the country, a handmaid under the training number 0917 is assigned to her new Master, a weird disfigured man with terrible secrets in his basement. Having no one to help her, she must search for her daughter and freedom herself.No person in this story is reliable and nothing is how it seems to be.





	Add Your Testament

**Author's Note:**

>   
> _Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic_  
>  _Orders? And even if one were to suddenly_  
>  _take me to its heart, I would vanish into its_  
>  _stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but_  
>  _the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,_  
>  _and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains_  
>  _to destroy us. Every Angel is terror._  
>  \- The First Elegy, Rainer Maria Rilke  
> 

I didn't remember much of my life. Everything what happened before the Union was blurry and confusing. When I concentrated enough, I felt like my memories were right there behind a light fabric and I could simply reach them. But to be honest didn't even try to remember much. Everyone who went through the training in the Red Center would understand. In that Hell, with small windows, cool walls and behind a fence with a barbed wire, we forgot so much because we couldn't afford to remember.

He would call it _a repression_ , thankfully, he didn't bother to brag about how unhealthy it is. I think he understood that sometimes remembering is too much to handle and that I wouldn't risk losing myself in the desperation of self pity.

I knew I had a child. My little girl. Aunts kept repeating that my maternal instinct is very strong. That must have been a good thing, since I got into the program without much problems. That's what I was reduced to under the Union’s rule. A mother, or hopefully a mother-to-be. We all were. But there is no point in bragging about that.

They shipped me to him at 7th May and I shall spare myself details. This whole experience was filled with anxiety and urge vomit straight in the face of an aunt which escorted me. They said she was a psychologist at the times when such a thing existed and I assumed that I've got such a handler because I was visibly nervous.

“It won't be easy, my dear. The man is notorious for his… extravagance.”  
I didn't really listen to her. It was the only way of staying sane. Hear, but don't listen. Let their bullshits trigger correct responses. Don't let them in.  
“Yes, aunt Yukiko.”  
I remember how hard it was for me to accept her status as the aunt as the woman was so obviously younger than me. But it didn't matter.  
“I should inform you that he had suffered severe burns in his childhood and was left visibly disfigured. It's not our place to question His decisions.”  
“Of course, aunt Yukiko.”  
Like these old animatronic toys which answered in a terrific monotonous voice when their string was pulled.  
“He has His ways to ensure we don't fall victims to vanity or other unnecessary complications. We are emotive beings. But you don't have to be afraid, for whatever happens, it is His will.”  
“Praised be.”  
She went quiet for a while. Her face was an impenetrable facade as always but to me she almost seemed worried. It was a stupid thought, of course.  
“I was quite surprised when they assigned you to him. I didn't know he has a wife. She must be quite closed. But that's not surprising with such a husband. However, father Theodore knows why God wishes you to be his.”  
“Blessed his name.”  
“You will fulfill your purpose using skills you've achieved at your at your training, it'll make you feel satisfied. You'll obey to your master and you won't find your situation distressing. Now count from 10 to zero. Ten…”  
Nine...Five...Two…

She didn't bother to lead me to the villa and kicked me off the car at the gate. It was a hardly standard procedure, she was obliged to assure my well-being, should have inspect the place before letting me stay and hand me in directly into Wife's care.

“My dear?” she gave me that weird look again. “You don't have to do anything you are not obliged to.”  
There was no response this could trigger.

Came out, when they described him as unorthodox or eccentric, what they meant was “a fucking psycho butcher.”  
Still, I liked him more than Valentini because in his bloody madness Victoriano seemed to keep certain professionalism. He was precise and clean. Everything he did seemed calculated and refined. While I could clearly see the joyful sadism his work radiated, it lacked Stefano’s grotesque sexual fantasies. Both of these murderers were fascinated by power, torture, and death to the point of testing the bounds of sanity.  
But with Stefano, one could say, he obviously didn’t even try to keep his necrophilic dick in pants.  
There was something sterile about Victoriano.

But I yet had to learn the difference.

I walked slightly confused to the house which looked like an omen from a classic horror movie. Long windows with dark curtains, no sign of life, all these things. It was built away from the town, right behind a churchyard, a distorted crimson shadow of times, which passed even before the Union was established and society got into all that mess. There was not a single flower in the garden and graves looked more lively these days. If it wasn't for two Wallace’s harbingers at the gate, their presence confirming the house belonged to someone in the Union’s highest ranks, I would think the place is abandoned. When I walked to the main door, I felt like someone's watching me. Or something, possibly sinister.  
At first, I blamed harbingers, they were never a good sign with their long coats and terrible masks and although they couldn't officially harm any handmaid, for we were considered to be untouchable, the all matter was painfully bureaucratic and whispers in the shadows didn’t say anything good about these men. However, soon I figured out that the hypnosis the aunt tried to put me through was most probably for my own protection. Or for her own, like her quick retreat.  
I can't imagine my new owner would react positively at meeting another psychologist.

Now, I’m reluctant to refer to him by his official position as the Doctor, it would take a great portion of cynicism for me to do that for that, likewise I cannot call him a Commander, although I was trained to serve Commanders specifically. He was not, in a fact, one of the Union’s leaders and nor was politically influential enough to have a household and a handmaid at normal circumstances. They told me he was some kind of an advisor, therefore I assumed he was a spy, but soon I learned that he rarely left a house and let's be honest, he wasn't exactly discreet. By the time I figured out he was given the position to silence him, mostly. We were both prisoners in that damned house just enough far away from the city to isolate us from Theodore’s suburban hell.

When I arrived, he waited for me at the main hall, his wife nowhere to be seen. He was, simply put, terrific. I can describe it in an abrupt and technical manner; He's suffered burns on at least 70 percent of the body in his early puberty, which left him with scars which later stretched into meatly looking textures. The right side of his face was burned off including the ear and he lacked any body hair and more. Although I didn't see the real extent of the damage inflicted on his body for a long time as he usually covered his head by a hood. Moreover, I suspect he had undergone several infections as he didn't care about hygiene very much. His eyes were sickly yellow like he had a hepatitis.

In retrospective I have to admit that he wasn't that imposing- I was used to seeing harbingers which all were around six feet tall and Ruben was just a little taller than me and moreover he was so lean he was almost underweight. But he always had a kind of unsettling aura around him. People found his presence uncomfortable to the point where their stomach tightened and they felt sick for no reason. It took me months before I could approach him without feeling an initial nausea, a feeling of panic somewhere in the back of my mind, telling me I don't want to spend any minute in the same room as him, nor listen to any words he says. Despite his undeniable charisma, he was like a walking anxiety trigger.

Moreover, he usually didn't bother to look like a civilized person, not even for our first meeting. He simply didn't care about other people or what they may feel. He met me half naked, only in his pants and hood and God have mercy, there was blood on his coat.  
He was a spitting image of a zombie and I was fucking terrified.  
He looked at me like he was inspecting a state of delivered goods and without a greeting or saying anything sane, he asked for my name. Just like that. With no instructions whatsoever.  
It shocked me so much I didn't even try to run. Names were forbidden. No one asked for the names these days. No one. It was insanely stupid thing to ask and a stupid thing to know. We didn't know each other’s names in the training center. It was dangerous.  
_I_ didn't know my name.

I thought it must be a test. Some rite of passage.  
“My assigned number is 0917,” I stuttered. “But according to the procedure you-”  
“Zero-nine seventeen will do. Or Seventeen, perhaps, if it's alright with you.”  
He had a deep, authoritative voice of a much older man or a heavy smoker and he didn't ask questions, although he grammatically constructed them. His gaze was hard, but he also never met my eyes. Not that I was allowed to meet his.  
“Of course, sir.”  
“Good. I didn't like the implication anyway.”  
“The implication?” Mistake. I wasn't my place to ask questions. But he didn't seem to care.  
“That there is nine hundred of you nowadays.”

He told me to find my room upstairs and kitchen downstairs. He told me to make myself home. He told me where his office is and not to look for him there as he works most of the time in the basement.  
He didn't tell me where the basement is and I got the suggestion that time. Do not disturb the man’s lair. I found myself at the Bluebeard’s castle and I had no intention to search for the wife's corpse.  
At least at that moment.

I settled in one of the upstairs rooms, like he told me to, and waited. And I kept doing that following days and weeks. It became my safe room in which I stayed hidden and unseen. My little girl inherited that one from me.  
She was patient from my side and resourceful from my husband’s. When she didn't want to be seen, she could simply disappear. I hoped she's still hiding somewhere, waiting for me to find her.

I wanted to stay in that small room forever, laying on the bed and hoping I'll disappear too. That I'll dissolve into air, miniature particles of me flying away, all free. Or at least I could try to keep the illusion of the false security, but I knew it was better to explore the situation I was in.  
The wife, which should give me tasks, was nowhere to be seen and Victoriano himself appeared only rarely. I managed to sneak a peek at him, when he was going to this office and confirmed my suspicion, that he didn’t try to make an entrance with these half torn clothes he wore at our meeting, it was simply a way he dressed. It disturbed me, but Yukiko’s hypnosis had to work at least a little because it definitely didn’t disturb me as much as it reasonably should.

I didn’t have much interaction with anyone besides that. For a house this huge there weren't much personnel.  
Once per a day a servant arrived to cook a meal and clean, but I was very sure she skipped at least two days at week and I couldn't figure out what exactly did she clean since the house was constantly covered in dust and mess. Most of days I wasn't ever sure of her presence since she moved like a shadow, leaving only some half-cold meal for me. She was obviously a Martha, another proof of my master’s position among Wallace's ranks, but above that, I couldn't be sure of anything. I usually spotted only a quick movement of her green clothes somewhere between walls and I didn't have a chance to look at her properly for months.

There was also a dark-eyed driver, a slim, young man, and I grow quite curious about him, but it seemed like he was avoiding me. I couldn't blame him, he probably shouldn't be with me in the same room alone if he wanted to keep his head attached to his body. Sometimes I caught him looking at me and then, when he saw I've noticed, he quickly returned to his business.  
Beside that my only company was my own loneliness, an occasional sound of the driver working in the garden and a slam of doors somewhere in the basement.

Firstly, I spent the most of my time closed in my room in a willing isolation. Victoriano still scared me for obvious reasons - he proved, that he didn't just try to make a memorable first impression by his choice of gruesome outfit and kept wearing it, but at least he buttoned up his pants for our first meeting, he didn't bother later. For two days I hoped the mysterious wife will appear and save me, however ironic that was, but then I had to admit, what I already knew.  
There was no wife around.

I began to sneak around the house, my natural curiosity fuelling me. I started carefully, in the fear of Victoriano, but soon I realized he's not coming out of his mysterious sex dungeon or whatever he had down there, if it's not a dinner time and possibly not even then. So I started to investigate the place with a precision of an experienced detective.

I figured out the room, I was living in was previously a children's room in about 30 minutes. I didn’t dare to enter his office, but even without opening the door, I figured out its size and an original purpose in two hours - it had to be a large library. I inspected the rest of the house and in a day or two I was sure there is either a walled staircase behind an unused bedroom, or a secret passage. I was clever enough not to touch anything in that room, but I figured out an escape route may come handy since it was the only bedroom with the double bed, which implied its crimson purpose.  
I had no idea what is Victoriano planning, my fertile window was approaching and despite -or perhaps due- to my training, the idea of being submitted to him without any witness became dreadful.

The driver saw me when I was in the garden scanning the upstairs floor and measuring the distance between external walls. I thought I was careful, but he didn’t believe my excuse that I merely needed some fresh air.  
“You shouldn’t be sneaking around. He will find out.”  
His voice was flat and without emotion like everything in that garden. I didn’t respond, fearing he may have actually recognized what I was doing and was going to report it. To Victoriano or someone else, that didn’t matter.  
He just sighed, “Don’t make it harder for any of us.”  
There could have been a hint of empathy in his tone, but I didn’t believe in such a thing under the Union. I returned to my room.

Occasionally a doctor Jimenez came to visit Ruben and I despite my isolation, I was happy to see every day he didn't. He was an impossibly sleazy man and he never asked for an invitation, he just appeared to mine and Ruben’s distaste. Almost every time he came, Ruben ended up shouting and throwing tantrums like an autistic kid, although he was normally collected to the point he seemed apathetic. Due to this and the obvious familiarity between them I'd assumed for a long time that Jimenez was his biological father.

The first time I oversaw their fight, was around five days after my arrival and they ended up shouting at each other in the main hall. It made me step out of the room to oversee the situation.  
“-assured that I don't have anything against you keeping someone around, but I'm merely concerned if this is the right choice-”  
“Let me be clear. It’s not your thing, who and when do I fuck.” It was obvious Victoriano was trying to sound indifferent but he was practically hissing. It made him look like an overgrown reluctant child.  
“I wish to believe it's about sex, Ruben, but we both know the policy of the project and in your condition- I’m merely concerned-”  
“And what exactly is your point here? Who are you to judge my personal decision?”  
“Ruben, you know I never interfere your studies, but I'm afraid have to point out that harming someone like- it could be-”  
“Harm? Since they care about harm? Since you care, Marcelo?”  
“If you do something silly, I’ll be the one responsible! Or not- Not exactly, but-”  
“That’s your problem, Marcelo. You care too much about things you don’t have to do anything with.”  
“They will use it an excuse to get rid of you!” As much I didn’t like the doctor, he seemed genuinely concerned for his protege.  
“They can’t get rid of me. I’m indispensable.”  
There was a long silence as the doctor stood awkwardly in the hall, looking everywhere but at the other man. I couldn’t blame him, I’ve never seen anything as terrific as angry Victoriano.  
“Ruben-”  
“Get out, Jimenez.”  
The man obeyed and Victoriano slammed a door with ferocity with explained why the house looked like it was about to fall.

He disappeared into the door on the left side of the hall and after few second I heard an abhorrent parody to piano music. Despite my self-preservation instinct I followed him.  
He stopped slamming keys of the old piano in disharmonious mess when I entered the room.  
“Do you play any instrument?”  
More questions about forbidden subjects.  
“No, sir.”  
He seemed displeased with my answer. “Can you sing?”  
“No, sir. That would be very inappropriate.”  
“Hm.” Under his scars and hood, his face was puffy like he was a sulking kid. I’ve always wondered who put frustrated men in the place of power, but perhaps it’s the power itself what frustrates them.  
“If you forgive me, I did sing- before. To my daughter mostly.”  
“Good. Sing something for me.”  
I corrected him before I realized what I was saying. “Such insolence is not allowed now.”  
He frowned. “This is my house and my rules apply here. You are supposed to follow my orders not whatever idiocies Mobius and Theodore came up with.”  
“Sir, I- It's been years. And I'm not sure I know any songs you would like.  
“I don't expect you to sing Caro Mio Ben.”

With that, he turned around again and started to play slow monotone melody.  
Eb, Gb, Ab, Bb- and then again in a different key. I got lost, but recognized it was an universal improvisation.

I took a deep breath. He did not give requests.  
If I didn’t obey him, that would be bad.  
But obeying him was also dangerous for he could immediately report me to the Union. Him or the driver or the Martha or the damned walls, it didn’t matter.  
I was a test, of course, I shouldn’t have doubted it before.  
I was expected to prove my loyalty. He set a trap for me and I walked straight into it like a complete fool.  
But after all, he shouldn’t be playing either.  
Which songs could appreciate a man like Victoriano?

My voice shook. Poorly mimicking Marlene Dietrich I sang of the flowers gone, of the girls who picked the up.  
Of the loss and war and misery, long time passing.  
Of the soldiers, graveyards, everyone.  
When will they ever learn,  
_when will they ever learn?_

When I finished, my hands trembling, he nodded agreeably.  
“That wasn’t bad. How long it was since you sang the last time?”  
Years. Decades. I didn’t know.  
I had no idea how much time passed since I’ve lost her.  
“I don’t know, sir.” my voice broke and tears fell on my red dress.  
Ruben didn’t comment it.

Later that day I found a sharp piece of glass, probably a broken bottle, and swore to myself that if any of them, anyone, tries to touch me, I'll cut them open.

**Author's Note:**

> I've abandoned this work some time ago because I didn't have anyone to correct my grammar. Unfortunately, I'm not a native speaker and I rely on my beta readers a lot.  
> The second reason for leaving this work unfinished were doubts anyone will ever read it due it's, well, obscurity. I planned to get to some M/M porn on my way, but it ended up mostly as a story of a female introspection and very sterile, unconventional forms of love.  
> But well, if someone would be interested in this work anyway, I have some plans for next chapters and I may write something down.


End file.
